Who's the Hero?
by allihearisradiogaga
Summary: Lance and Keith are making an escape from the Galra when Keith takes fire.
1. Chapter 1

"Are you coming, or not?" asked Lance, turning back to fire on the Galra goons that were chasing them. Keith sprinted past him as he fired a few shots backward, catching one of them in the chest and knocking it to the ground.

"I am. Are you?" Lance turned back just in time to see the corner of that smirk—the one that he wished he could slap off of Keith's face, every time. Lance pushed his legs just a bit faster, locking his eyes on the hangar doors. They would have to be through it and into the escape pods _before_ the Galra could get to the doors and open them. He narrowed his eyes and tried to push faster, the laser blasts from the Galras' guns ricocheting off of the metal walls around them.

Keith reached the doors first, punching the "open" button with a fist and ducking inside as they slid open. Lance stopped between the doors and fired some shots back into the hallway, knocking another Galra back as he did.

"Get out of the way of the doors!" shouted Keith, and Lance fired once more before he moved—he could take at least _one_ more of them out before they evacuated. Lance turned to make a quip at Keith, since obviously _he_ was going to be the hero of this day, taking more Galra out before they made their escape, but Keith's eyes were wide, and facing the group chasing them down the hallway. In an instant, Keith summoned the sword from his bayard and slashed it across the control panel, sending the doors shut, and leapt at Lance.

Lance began to put his hands up to stop Keith, and was halfway through saying, "What the _hell_?" when he saw the laser gatling gun one of the larger Galra had begun to fire in their direction. And he watched as the doors slammed shut against them, Keith pinning him down to the ground, out of the way of the firing.

The thick hangar-bay doors shut, they were surrounded by silence. All of the commotion from the hallway, the shooting and footsteps, the shouts of the Galra, trying to slow them down, were all gone, and they were left alone. Lance exhaled deeply and shoved Keith. "Get offa me."

Keith didn't reply with some sort of insult or jibe—instead, he just moaned, and Lance sat up a little straighter. He knew that the Galra were just on the other side of the door, probably working on some way to bust through it. Keith knew that just as well as he did, and Keith wasn't moving…

"Keith, what's going on?" He shook his teammate's shoulder, eliciting another moan, but no other response. He grabbed ahold of Keith's arm and twisted his body so that he was facing upward in his lap, and Lance realized why Keith hadn't been moving from his position.

Keith's entire left side was gouged open from the laser bullets from the gatling gun, torn apart as if ripped at by a hundred tiny claws, and glued back together haphazardly at the same time. When he had tackled Lance out of the way, he had taken the hits that were meant for him. That left him with semi-cauterized wounds up and down his side and arm, a swatch of dark red blood against his white armor.

Lance's heart started to beat faster, and he forced himself to stop, to keep his hands from shaking. It was _Hunk_ who panicked and got sick in bad situations, not him. He was fearless. He thought.

He lifted Keith's head up a bit, resting it in the crook of his arm. "Keith," he said, quiet. Keith's mouth fell slightly open, and he was breathing weakly—Lance could feel that—but there was no indication that he had heard Lance. "Keith!" Lance tried again, louder this time, but this time he only received a low moan in reply.

Lance took his hand from Keith's side and pressed the button on the side of his helmet to open the comm link. "Pidge, we need an extraction. I don't know if we're going to be able to—Keith is down."

"We can't get you from in there," said Pidge though Lance's helmet. Lance gritted his teeth, feeling how warm the wound was against his hand as he held Keith in his lap. "I need you to eject in the escape pod before we retrieve you—we just can't take on a Galra ship's defenses without you both, without Voltron." They paused. "Is he okay?"

Lance looked down to Keith, whose face had lost a lot of its color. "He'll—he'll have to be. We'll get out." Lance shut down the communication link before Pidge could push any further, and pulled Keith up a little further.

He didn't know anything about medicine—that wasn't his line of work. He knew flying. But Keith needed some medical attention, and he needed it soon. And if he didn't get him back to the castle, to where he could get medical attention, soon he…

Lance put his hand over the wounds, the ripped-up and singed flesh, and could feel the heat coming off of them. He pulled Keith upward, and taking a deep breath before doing so to prepare himself, slapped Keith across the face. Keith's eyes shot open, and the silence of the hangar was broken by a gasping scream. The scream ceased almost immediately when it caught in Keith's throat, and he gasped for air.

"Keith, Keith…" Lance placed his hand on his teammate's cheek for a moment before withdrawing it to hold his body, to give him more support. "Don't move. Don't—I had to get you awake."

"Aah…" He winced, but when his eyes opened, they were locked on Lance. Lance could tell that his jaw was set, in an effort to deal with what could only be a colossal amount of pain.

"I'm sorry, I mean, this was my—if you hadn't jumped in to save me—I mean, if I had…" He broke off as he felt tears in his own eyes, and he turned away. Keith didn't say anything, but the puddle of blood on the floor around them was fed by a semi-steady dripping from Keith's side. "I-I'm going to get you out of here."

Keith coughed, and he wheezed something out. Lance's eyebrows raised, and he turned back to him. "What was that?"

Keith's voice was less than a whisper, just a suggestion at a noise, but Lance could understand him when he said, "It's about time." Keith's face twitched between a tight line and a grimace before working its way into _that smirk_ , the one that was just _Keith_ , and dug into Lance like nothing else. But this time, it was okay, because it meant that Keith was still there, and there was still hope for him.

Lance cast his gaze around the room and saw the escape pod, prepped and ready for launch, less than twenty feet away. It would only be a matter of transporting his wounded comrade to the ship and getting out, and Pidge could pick them up from there. He carefully moved his legs out from under Keith and began to prop him up into a standing position.

"I'm…" Keith muttered only a word before his eyes fluttered and shut. He wavered on his legs and began to fall forward, but Lance grabbed ahold of his good arm and around his side, unintentionally digging into the wounds, causing blood to spill down over his arm and pain to jolt into Keith, who cried out.

Lance released his grip on Keith's side, and carefully lowered him back down onto his back, supporting him under the shoulders the whole time. He hooked Keith's good arm around his shoulders, but his injured arm could do nothing but hang back. Lance realized that Keith was not going to be able to stand, and that was going to make getting him onto the escape pod much more difficult. He would need to try a different approach.

A _klang_ filled the hangar, and Lance's head whipped around to the doors, which were just a moment ago seemingly impenetrable. _Something_ had struck them with enough force to make a dent, at least, and make some noise. It was only a matter of time before they got through. He turned from the door back to Keith, whose face was contorted into a grimace of agony.

"We need to go," he muttered to no one, and placed the arm not supporting Keith's shoulders under his knees. He tried to ignore the smear of blood on his own arm, and breathed a sharp exhale as he stood up, Keith in his arms, princess-style.

He wavered. He was not as strong as he liked to boast, and Keith was at least a hundred eighty pounds of dead weight, even if he had lost blood. Lance could already feel his arms beginning to burn, and—

He noticed the puddle of blood on the floor, and it seemed even bigger than it had before. How much blood _had_ Keith lost? Sure, the lasers cauterized the wounds to an extent, but they were messy and ragged, and still oozing blood. His arm and side were _mangled_ , and he knew that even now, holding him in his arms, he was causing him both pain and damage. He hoped that it wasn't bad that Keith had fallen unconscious again, because there was no way that Lance would be able to do this with his fellow paladin trying not to react to the pain he was inflicting on him, that he had _caused_.

He wavered again, but countered and balanced himself by taking a step forward. He took in a deep breath and braced himself even as another _klang_ rang out through the hangar. He took another shaky step forward. They were getting through the door _he_ had tried to make a heroic stand in, and instead of just getting out of there with Keith, he had needed to stop and show off, outclass his friend, and that had gotten him here. Holding his friend, bleeding out, and there was nothing he could do…

 _Yes_ , he thought, _there_ is _something I can do_. He needed to get Keith to the escape pod. Get him to medical attention. And he wasn't making that happen by feeling sorry for himself. He took another stagger forward, and another, trying to connect his strides like he was walking normally, but the weight of his teammate in his arms prohibited this. A small, dripping trail of blood followed them as he walked.

And what had he done that would even make Keith want to do that for him, sacrifice himself? Put himself in danger for him? Lance had done nothing but antagonize him, and there was no way that he should have felt indebted to Lance. He had done it because—

 _Because he cares about me_. Lance closed his eyes tight against tears, but wasn't able to stop them as they welled up in his eyes. Keith cared enough about him to put himself in danger, to literally _throw_ his body between the enemy and Lance, and Lance did nothing but annoy him. And now?

Now he was doing his best to save him, but— _klang_ —he wasn't sure he was going to be able to get to the escape pod on time, get out of the Galra ship in time, get back to the castle in time to keep Keith alive. And his blood was _literally_ on his hands.

He took another step forward, and he could hear the _klang_ again—this time, however, it was different. It had made it through, and Lance's heart stopped. He turned his head just enough to see some metal pole—a javelin, or staff, or some sort of apparatus they Galra guard might have on hand for bludgeoning, rammed through the doors like a giant pry bar. And it was working the doors steadily more open.

Lance took another step, his arms shaking as he realized even more the weight of his injured friend. Keith's head rolled from its position to rest against Lance's upper arm, and Lance felt another pang of guilt. _I should've been the one to take the shots…_ He didn't have long to dwell on this, however, because there was another _klang_ from the door, and a screeching as the large bar was shifted back in forth in an effort to pry open the doors. Lance forced himself not to look back, for Keith's sake, and focused on the escape pod ahead of them. He could see the tattered side of Keith's body in the bottom of his vision, and he tried to think only of the task at hand, rather than what he must be feeling and what the damage could be to his long-term wellbeing.

Behind him, the screech turned into a longer, more sustained creak as the doors were jarred open just a bit wider, and a few laser blasts found their way through, bouncing off of and burying in the walls around them. Lance clenched his jaw against this, trudging a bit more forward, just a few steps away from the escape pod…

His legs burned. His arms burned. His mind swirled with guilt and blame and pain, and he could hear as the Galra got a better angle on the doors and started to pry again. Lance took another step, felt his knee wobble, and took a deep breath, forcing it to stay in position, keep him upright. Another step, and he was almost there. Another—

He knelt down, lowering himself as slowly as he could on his shaking legs, and placed Keith on the ground. He did his best, as he withdrew his arms from beneath his teammate, to not agitate his wounds, but that didn't stop his arms from being slicked red with Keith's blood when he finished lying him on the ground. He looked pale, he looked beaten, he looked—dead. Lance shook his head, trying to push that thought away, and felt the tears in his eyes. He choked them back, catching in his throat, and pressed the button to open the door the escape pod, averting his eyes from Keith's form below him.

The door slid open, and Keith squatted down, slipping his arms as carefully as he could under Keith's body. He was even heavier now, nothing but dead weight, and he groaned as Lance lifted him up from a squat. Lance took those last few steps into the escape pod to set Keith precariously down in one of the seats, buckling him into the harness. The strap pinched against Keith's mangled arm, and Lance wished there was some sort of alternative way to secure him. However, he didn't have the time to search for one, because with one final wrenching push, the Galra opened the hangar doors and began to open fire on the escape pod in earnest.

Lance cast a last glance back at Keith and brushed the tears out of his eyes with the back of his hand. He had forgotten, however, about the blood on his hands, and left a streak of Keith's blood across his face. He opened his mouth to scream, but it hung open, silent, for a moment before he closed it again and slammed his hand down on the button that opened the airlock. The Galra around the escape pod were instantly whipped off of their feet and hurled into the void of outer space through the hangar's bay doors. "Pidge, I'm in the pod," said Lance, his voice almost cracking in the comms. "Come get us."

He grabbed the controls with shaking, bloody hands, and pushed the pod forward, out of the hangar. He could only hope that he had gotten Keith out in time, so that he could face him— _oh God, how was he going to face him?_ —and thank him for what he had done. He could only hope that Keith would be okay.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N:_ _Okay, this was originally supposed to be a oneshot, and I was going to leave it there, but a lot of people were asking for more, and I figured "why not?" So here it is, the epilogue (of sorts), and I hope it wraps things up well!_

Lance pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them, staring at nothing in particular on the other side of the room. The whole castle was quiet, and it had been quiet ever since he and Keith had been picked up in the escape from the Galra ship, and they had escape danger via wormhole.

No one had _blamed_ him, and he knew that they didn't need to. He blamed _himself_ plenty. He'd told Shiro about what happened as Coran and Hunk had moved Keith, still unconscious, from the escape pod to the medical wing of the castle. Shiro had nodded and placed a hand on Lance's shoulder, saying "You did what you could."

Lance had to hold himself back from telling Shio that it didn't matter that he did what he could, because it wasn't enough. Instead, he just clenched his fists and nodded dutifully. Shio lingered for a moment, probably making sure that his words had sunk in before leaving Lance to go to the medical wing with the others.

Lance closed his eyes, squeezing them shut harder and harder, hoping that he could get the sight of Keith's mangled body out of his mind. There it was, though, burned into his mind's eye, and there he was, back in the hangar, trying to get Keith to safety, but unable to do anything. He is holding Keith in his arms, feeling the heat from his fresh wounds, and Keith _looks_ at him, and his eyes are full of pain and it's _his fault_ and he…

It's all in his head, and he knows that, sitting there not in his battle suit but his daily clothes, on a couch in the castle's common area, alone. He knew that they would probably be able to _save_ Keith—he knew that the Altean technology was more than advanced enough to repair any kind of physical injury. He had felt its effects himself, before. But that didn't take back the pain. It didn't rid Keith of the scars that would be there as reminders of his sacrifice. It wouldn't take back the way that he'd thrown himself between the lasers and Lance without so much as a second thought. It didn't take back the blood…

Lance's mind flashed back to the hangar, and the way the blood dripping from Keith left a grotesque Hansel and Gretel trail back to the door. The blood was on his arms, and his chest, and his legs… The blood stood out against his white armor, and dripped off its slick surface to the ground, adding to the trail. He remembered how he had wiped the blood _on his face_ , and took a deep, shaky breath.

He knew that he wasn't doing Keith any good by sitting here and moping, but it was all he could do. What was he _supposed_ to do, know that it was _him_ who should have taken those shots, knowing _he_ should be the one going through the healing process over the next couple of days? How could he go about his daily life knowing that those words, those eventual scars, were meant to be his? He had been the one standing and shooting in the open, to be some kind of _hero_ …

And what could Keith have been thinking when he put himself in that position, when he tackled Lance out of the way? What sort of deference, what sort of fervor could he have felt? What kind of _care_ could he have had in order to make such a sacrifice? And would Lance have done the same?

Could he have?

He wasn't sure he would before, but now…?

Lance figured he'd _have_ to, but maybe… Maybe the obligation to save Keith wouldn't come from the fact that he _owed_ him but from the knowledge that Keith would do the same.

He released from his almost fetal position and sighed. His shoulders slumped down forward as he stretched out his legs, and he looked around the large room. Usually it was full of paladins, sitting around, working on some project or another, reading, talking…

And now, Lance was alone. He wasn't sure what he'd do to even just have Keith here, so they could have their usual banter, fighting over something that wasn't really anything at all. But he couldn't, because _he_ had to get in those few extra shots. He had to be the hero.

But that didn't end up being the case, at all. And now?

He could do nothing but wait. He was helpless to help, and nothing was worse. He wiped a tear away with his sleeve, knowing how lame it was that he was crying when he wasn't even the one who was hurt, and he couldn't get the thought of Keith's blood on his face out of his mind.

When they had gotten back to the castle, and he'd shed his armor, Lance had scrubbed at his face until it was _raw_ to get the blood off of it. It was clean, and he went at it again, and it didn't erase the _feeling_ of the blood, of Keith's blood, on his face. It was almost fitting, considering whose fault it was. And there was no way he could remove the blood, reverse what happened.

That was what hurt. And that was why he hadn't visited Keith in the medical wing. That was why he was here, alone.

That was why he couldn't stop it when a fresh spring of tears welled up in his eyes. He felt hollow, in this hollow room, and could hear his small sobs echoing gently against the high ceilings.

He wished he could change it, that he could make it better, that he could push Keith back from doing it, he wished…

But he couldn't.

* * *

When Keith was released from the pod, and sent away from the medical wing, he was very strictly directed by Coran, Allura, and Shiro separately not to "overdo it." He waved them away with his good hand and made his way back to the common area, happy to be able to move around at all after his few days in the pod. His legs were shaky, and he could feel the ache coming from his arm and side, but it was better to be _doing_ things, rather than just floating around in suspended space.

He ran into Pidge on his way to the common area, and they were careful not to let their large eyes linger on Keith's injuries for too long. He knew they were unsightly, the way his skin was mottled and an unnatural shade of pink up and down his side and his arm, and he for a moment wished that he had gotten his jacket to cover up, rather than just his tee shirt.

Pidge realized they'd been caught looking, and averted their eyes downward. "Anyway, Hunk's got something for you to eat when you make it down to the kitchen," they said, smiling up at him, focusing only on his face. "He said that it's been much too long that you've been without a meal."

Keith put his good hand on his stomach and smiled. "Yeah, I guess you're right." Pidge nodded, said their good-byes, and hurried off to the workshop. Keith watched them go, and then glanced down at his arm, which he knew was not a pretty sight. He almost cringed himself when _he_ first saw it, but Coran had assured him that it would work normally, the skin would just be sensitive, and the muscles would need time to heal. Keith felt it just weighed down at the moment, and wondered what the rest of the paladins' reactions would be to it. Pidge was _trying_ to be supportive, but Keith saw the way their eyes lingered, the way they skirted around it awkwardly. He sighed and moved forward toward the common area. There was nothing he could do about it, in any case.

The common area was empty when he entered, and he wandered over to the couch in the middle of the room. He was tired from the short walk from the medical wing, and realized that he was really going to have to listen to the team parents—he was going to have to take it easy for a little while. He was weak after his injuries, and after his time in the med pod.

He plopped down on the couch, and in doing so, almost landed on a sleeping Lance, who he hadn't seen from the other side. The blue paladin scrambled awake, almost falling off as he did. His eyes were muddled in post-sleep confusion for a moment, but in the next instant, he realized what woke him, and he sat upright.

"K-keith."

"Lance."

They stared at each other for a moment, and Lance didn't avert his eyes like Pidge had. Lance's eyes were locked on the scars along Keith's arm, and Keith could feel his eyes burrowing into his scar tissue. Their eyes met after a long moment and both opened their mouths to speak at once.

"Look, I'm—"

"Thank you."

"What?" asked Lance, both of his eyebrows going up in surprise.

"Don't make me say it again, man." Keith looked down, watching his scarred left hand fidget with his unblemished right in his lap.

"W-wait, why are you thanking me?" Lance's eyes seemed wider, and Keith realized that was because they were magnified by the tears forming in the corners of his eyes. "I—it was my fault that it happened! I caused it, and I couldn't…" He broke off, and went to wipe the tears from his face with his sleeve. A few inches from his face, he stopped, and put his arm back down to his side.

"What?" asked Keith. "No, Lance, you…" He didn't _want_ to say it, but Lance—the guy he fought with daily, the guy he honestly _couldn't stand_ , he'd… "You saved my life."

"But…"

"There's no but about it," said Keith. Lance looked pitiful, and Keith moved his arm to make it more comfortable.

"You—the only reason you got hurt is that _I_ was being an idiot." Lance sniffed. "And if I hadn't, you wouldn't have…"

"You would have done the same thing." Lance raised an eyebrow. Keith sighed. "You would have. And you _were_ an idiot. You always are."

"Hey, I—!" Lance sighed a half-laugh. "I guess I am."

Keith hesitated a moment, then leaned forward and wiped away Lance's tears with the palm of his hand. Lance pulled back at first, surprised, but let it happen. When he sat upright, Keith held his injured hand out to Lance. "Thank you."

Lance hesitated a moment, then reached out with a shaking hand of his own, and grasped Keith's hand gently, careful and cognizant of his fresh scars. Keith responded with a squeeze, and looked Lance in the eyes.

"So next time, just don't make me do that again." His mouth widened into a smirk, and Lance managed a wobbly smile as well. Keith released his hand and let it fall to his side.

They sat there in comfortable silence for a while, and much later, when Hunk came up from the kitchen to see what was taking Keith so long to get down there, they were both asleep, Keith's head resting on Lance's shoulder and Lance's resting on Keith's head. Keith's scarred arm was laid out between them, slightly curled in a comfortable position. Hunk let them sleep, because they both needed it. And it was going to be okay. They _both_ were going to be okay.


End file.
